The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) will order inspections of at least some of the Airbus A350s in service after an engine fire on a Cathay Pacific plane, it announced on Thursday.
While the Hong Kong company mentioned a “failure” on a Rolls-Royce Trent XWB-97 engine during a flight to Zurich on Monday, the EASA specified in a press release that it was an “engine fire in flight, shortly after takeoff”, apparently linked to defective “high pressure fuel lines”.
In the incident involving an A350-1000, the largest of Airbus’ flagship long-haul aircraft, “the fire was quickly detected and extinguished, and the aircraft returned to Hong Kong safely,” EASA said. It said it was “taking precautionary measures to avoid any similar incident,” based on preliminary information from the relevant Hong Kong authorities, as well as “the aircraft and engine manufacturers.”
Dismantling of high pressure fuel lines
In this case, EASA “will request an inspection of the A350 fleet, which may only concern a part of it, to identify and dismantle all potentially defective high-pressure fuel lines,” it added in its press release.
The European agency has promised to publish precise instructions for airlines this Thursday, setting out the scope of these inspections and the deadline before they are carried out.
The agency did not immediately specify whether these checks would only concern European companies or all those operating aircraft equipped with the affected engines.